Ash

1 Well known rock outfit Ash first formed as a trio sharing a love for the raw british punk and crafted their musical talents to take the brit-pop scene by storm at the start of the decade. NME was swooning over these "teen punkers from Belfast," and by 1994 Ash had signed to Infectious Records to issue the Trailer EP later that fall.

Their glossy youth was undoubtedly alluring, yet their Irish roots exuded a bit of an American flair similar to the likes of Pavement and The Lemonheads. They weren't even out of high school before three singles hit the Top Five in the U.K. indie charts. A year later marked Ash's full-length debut with 1977 and a deal with Reprise Records in the U.S. Named after the year they were all born and in honour of the year Star Wars was released, 1977 displayed Wheeler and Hamilton's full-fledged love for all things extraterrestrial and science fiction-related. Sharp guitar hooks and exact production work by Owen Morris Oasis, New Order, Paul Weller gained the bandmembers the fame they'd been wishing for since childhood. They were headlining major festivals -- T in the Park, Glastonbury, Roskilde, and Reading -- and playing countless club dates across the globe. In fall 1997, female guitarist Charlotte Hatherley was added to the all-male lineup, a definite change for the band's sound and image and a step that led Ash's fan base to expand into more of what the band had been looking for since the beginning.

With a new bandmate and the end of their teenage years, Ash welcomed anything that came their way. The late '90s marked a maturation for Ash as a unit as well as individually. Their sound featured heavier guitars while Wheeler's lyrical content experienced a much grittier shift. Their sophomore effort, Nu-Clear Sounds 1998, had Garbage's Butch Vig The Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana at the mixing board, and it wasn't necessarily their finest moment. NME turned on the band, criticizing Ash's new sound as "terrifying, ghoulrawk thrashnik deathcore noiseterrior sultans of satanic verse" in August 1998. Harsh words and reviews didn't distract Ash, however. Free All Angels followed in April 2001, although it didn't even see a U.S. release until the following summer. Meltdown, the band's first stateside release for Record Collection, arrived in spring 2005. A year later, and after nine years with Ash, Charlotte Hatherley announced her departure from the band.

In 2007 Ash released the album 'Twilight Of The Innocents', and at the same time announced it would be their final album. They will instead commit time to only releasing digital download singles.

2 The band called Ash is an American black metal project by two members of Black Harvest. With only one demo released, they split up due to personal choices leading them to move into different areas of the country. The band is therefore not at all well known, but still has as of dec. 2006 8 reviews at metal-archives, just for that one demo with an average score of 85Yea

3 The band named ash is a Japanese rock band. They toured with Dué le quartz, and Kagrra, during the TRIBAL WARNING! tour from the ps company lable in 2001. Other than that, they are little knonw. They have released a few mini albums.